Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.

NORMAN H. WIENER BUILDING JUST WEST OF DOWNTOWN

Albion Recorder, February 2, 1998, pg. 4

Many older Albion residents remember Albion’s "go-gettingest mayor,"
Norman H. Wiener (1891-1962), who served as mayor 1931-1944, and
1949-1954. He was known for bringing in Federal funds for various WPA
projects during the Great Depression. The Kalamazoo River retaining
wall, the Victory Park Band Shell, City Hall, and the 1940 brick
Superior Street are examples of the results of his funding successes.
But what did Mayor Wiener do for a living?

Mayor Wiener was a native of Neschoiz, Russia, and arrived in the
U.S. at New York at the age of 16 on the ship Pennsylvania on December
16, 1907. He first settled in Three Rivers, and also lived a short time
in Battle Creek. On his 1909 Declaration of Intention application to
become a U.S. citizen, he was living in East Lansing as a student, no
doubt at Michigan Agricultural College. Wiener arrived in Albion the
following year.

Wiener established a scrap iron and general waste material business
here under the name of Albion Iron & Metal Company. He eventually
became one of the largest dealers of such material in southern
Michigan. One 1925 reference stated, "Mr. Wiener is an exponent of the
doctrine of conservation of resources."

The Albion Iron & Metal Company was originally located at 111 N.
Clinton St., one block west of downtown Albion. This was on the west
side of the street north of the Kalamazoo River, approximately where
the "Stitch ‘N Stuff" T-shirt business building is located today at 201
N. Clinton St. Wiener purchased the site in 1912 and erected a new
office building there in 1913.

In July 1923 Wiener purchased the Frank E. Nowlin grain elevator
building across the street on the southeast corner of N. Clinton and
Michigan Sts., and moved his business there. He also ran the N. H.
Wiener Coal Company, and at one time employed about 20 men. Wiener was
in partnership with D. Richard McAuliffe from 1944 to 1951 in both
firms. During this period the company went into the steel brokerage
business. It would purchase steel in other communities and have it
shipped directly "on site" to an industry needing it. The coal/fuel
business was discontinued in the early 1950s.

Beginning in 1952, Wiener was associated with his son-in-law, Victor
S. Burstein in the steel brokerage business. Burstein (also another
Albion Mayor) became president of the company upon Wiener’s death in
1962. Today the former Albion Iron & Metal Company is the site of
Gardner Casters & Wheels, 210 N. Clinton St. The building is called
the Wiener Building, and you can see the date of 1910 in front on top.
This is the date Wiener came to Albion and founded his company, not the
date the building was erected. Historically, Frank Nowlin had purchased
the site in 1912, erected his elevator and held a grand opening in May,
1913. The present facade was added in 1954 at the time the adjoining
Tom Maker Supermarket was constructed.

This week we present a photograph of Wiener’s original 1913 office
building on the west side of N. Clinton St. The sign states, "Norman H.
Wiener, Rags, Rugger, Paper, Iron, Hides & Fur." Notice the
manufactured gas storage tanks of the Albion Gas Light Company in the
background, which were located to the west on N. Eaton St.

After Wiener moved across the street, his former 1913 office
building was used by the Albion Bolt Company. It then served as the
headquarters for the D. C. Boyd Coal Company during the 1930s and
1940s. During the early 1950s it was the headquarters of Frank Birney’s
Albion Truck & Storage Company, a moving firm. The building was
demolished in the summer of 1954 to be used as a parking lot for the
new Maker IGA Supermarket which opened across the street.

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